Saturday, July 24, 2010

Where Does Cabrera's 2010 Season Rank in Tigers History?

It's been well documented that Miguel Cabrera has a chance to be the first Triple Crown winner (league leader in batting average, home runs and Runs Batted In) in Major League Baseball since Red Sox outfielder Carl Yastremski accomplished the feat in 1967. Cabrera's .347 batting average is second in the league to Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton (.354). His 24 homer's are second to Jose Baustista of the Blue Jays (26) . He leads the league in RBI with 85.So, he is certainly within reach of winning all three categories.
Cabrera also ranks well on some of the more modern statistics: He leads in slugging average (.650) and OPS (1.070). He is second in OBP (.420) to Twins first Baseman Justin Morneau (.437).

If we compare his OPS to league average and adjust for home ballpark, we get his adjusted OPS+. An OPS+ of 100 is league average. An OPS+ of more than 100 is better than average and an OPS+ of less than 100 is worse than average. Keeping in mind that it's difficult to assign a ballpark effect to Target Field in Minnesota at this early stage, Cabrera is currently second to Morneau in OPS+ (181 versus 182).

A limitation of OPS+ is that it weights OBP and slugging equally. In actuality, OBP is more important than slugging and should carry more weight. It has been determine from the results of thousands of games that the following linear weights are more appropriate:

single 0.47
double 0.77
triple 1.04
home run 1.40
walk 0.31
HBP 0.34

Based on that, we can arrive at a batters runs created (wRC). Cabrera has 84.7 wRC which is second to Hamilton at 85.8. Adjusted Runs Created (wRC+) is the linear weights version of OPS+ and is interpreted the same way. Cabrera is second to Morneau in wRC+ (181 to 185).

I used OPS+ and wRC+ to compare Cabrera's 2010 season so far to the best seasons in Tigers history. Table 1 below lists the top seasons according to OPS+. Not surprisingly, Ty Cobb dominates the list with nine of the top 11 seasons. His OPS+ in those years ranged from 209 in 1917 to 185 in 1915. His supremacy is interrupted only by Norm Cash (201 in 1961) and Harry Heilmann (194 in 1923). Cabrera's current 181OPS+ ranks him 12th on the list. For those who are curious, Magglio ordonez had a 166 OPS+ in 2007.

Table 1: Top OPS+ seasons in Tigers history

Rank

Player

Year

OPS+

1

Ty Cobb

1917

209

2

Ty Cobb

1910

206

3

Norm Cash

1961

201

4

Ty Cobb

1912

200

5

Ty Cobb

1911

196

6

Harry Heilmann

1923

194

7

Ty Cobb

1913

194

8

Ty Cobb

1909

194

9

Ty Cobb

1918

193

10

Ty Cobb

1914

190

11

Ty Cobb

1915

185

12

Miguel Cabrera

2010

181

13

Harry Heilmann

1927

180

14

Ty Cobb

1916

179

15

Al Kaline

1967

176

16

Roy Cullenbine

1946

176

Table 2 lists the top Tigers seasons according to wRC+. Cobb is even more dominant on this list taking nine of the top ten spots. Cash's 1961 season is the only interruption. Cabrera ranks #15 on this list behind ten seasons of Cobb, Cash, Heilmann's 1923 and 1927 seasons and Roy Cullenbine in 1946.

There is still a lot of baseball to be played this season but if Cabrera can keep up the same pace, it will be one of the best seasons ever by a Tiger not named Cobb.